The Sherry one hits a nerve with me. This one time, one of my writing groups was planning a picnic during the first phase of letting people out during Covid (rule of 6 in the UK, social distancing, etc). After realizing that there would be more than 6 people and that frankly some of them didn’t actually care about any of the rules, I removed myself from the plans, and said I’d join next time. I wasn’t angry, or anything, I just felt it was the right thing to do. Friend of mine texts me after this. This WhatsApp conversation went on for 4 hours, because she simply wouldn’t take my answers to her questions. She kept badgering and demanding to know if there were other reasons, if I was upset with someone, etc. Four hours, nonstop. I kept telling her to stop, that this was getting ridiculous, and I even contacted one of our mutual friends to talk to her and get her to back off. She didn’t listen and didn’t care. The whole time, she pretended she was trying to help. In reality, she just wanted to know ‘the gossip’. She gossips about people all the time, has no life of her own and during that period, lived vicariously through the lives of said writing group. That was the last time I spoke (and far from the first time she showed no empathy, but that’s beside the point). To this day, I still can’t quite believe that conversation actually happened.